Schwedt Refinery Struggling to Replace Russian Flows

Production at Germany’s 233,000 bpd Schwedt refinery is being hit as it struggles to source oil not supplied by Russia.

• Three months after Warsaw and Berlin agreed to work together to supply alternative crude for the refinery, it is only running at 50-60% of capacity and those alternative supplies remain elusive.
• Russia halting crude flows to Poland last month via the Druzhba pipeline has squeezed Poland’s ability to pull in volumes via Gdansk for Schwedt. The spare capacity at Gdansk is instead being used to supply Poland’s Plock refinery which had previously relied on Druzhba flows.
• Schwedt can only pull in around one third of the volumes it thought it was going to receive via Gdansk according to Reuters sources.
• Other attempts are being made to supply Kazakhstan’s Kebco, but it still has to pass through Russia and is indistinguishable from Urals as well as arriving in limited volumes.